Speaker biographies

Debra T. Ballen is executive vice president of public policy management for the American Insurance Association (AIA). In this capacity, she is responsible for developing and implementing policy for AIA’s priority federal and state public policy issues, including the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA), natural disasters, regulatory reform, and tort and litigation matters. She also serves as AIA’s corporate secretary. Ms. Ballen is a member of the boards of directors of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and the Highway Loss Data Institute; and  a member of the RAND Institute for Civil Justice’s Insurance Advisory Committee and of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s High Level Advisory Board on Financial Management of Large Scale Catastrophes. Ms. Ballen joined AIA in 1986 and was elected to her current job in March 1998, after having served as vice president and senior vice president of the policy development and research department. Before joining AIA, Ms. Ballen was an attorney with a practice focusing on insurance and reinsurance matters, including tax policy, latent torts, and contract interpretation.

Shirley D. Bowler was elected to the Louisiana House of Representatives in October 1991, becoming the first Republican woman ever elected to the Louisiana legislature. Since then she has served on the House Insurance Committee, its Civil Law and Procedure Committee, and the House Labor and Industrial Relations Committee. Ms. Bowler represents parts of the East Bank of Jefferson Parish, including Harahan, River Ridge and about a fourth of Metairie. While in the legislature, she has worked with the National Conference of Insurance Legislators (NCOIL) to develop a Cbroad view of what works and what does not regarding the regulation of insuranceC. Four years ago, Ms. Bowler chaired NCOIL’s Property/Casualty Committee. In addition to her legislative duties, she writes and edits the Texas Surplus Line Reporter and Insurance News, a monthly independent newspaper that covers the insurance industry in Texas.

Eli Lehrer is a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, where he directs CEI’s studies of insurance markets. Prior to joining CEI, Mr. Lehrer worked as speechwriter to United States Senate majority leader Bill Frist (R.-Tenn.). He previously worked as a manager in the Unisys Corporation’s Homeland Security Practice, was a senior editor of The American Enterprise magazine, and was a fellow at the Heritage Foundation. He has spoken at Yale and George Washington Universities and testified before Congress. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, Washington Times, The Weekly Standard, National Review, The Public Interest, Salon.com, and dozens of other publications.

Carl M. Parks joined the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies (NAMIC) on August 1, 2006. As NAMIC’s first senior vice president of a combined government affairs department, Mr. Parks directs both the state and federal regulatory and legislative advocacy efforts of NAMIC in what is an increasingly integrated regulatory environment for this industry. Prior to joining NAMIC, he was chief lobbyist for two large financial services trade associations, special assistant for strategic planning to a national political party chairman, counsel to the late U.S. senator Paul Coverdell (R-Ga.), and senior counsel in the government affairs department of a leading insurance company.

George A. Pieler is an attorney and policy consultant. He was a senior fellow with the Institute for Policy Innovation, and prior to September 2001, was an adjunct fellow with the Competitive Enterprise Institute. He was acting deputy under secretary of education in the George H. W. Bush administration and co-founded the Washington Scholarship Fund in 1993. Earlier in his career, Mr. Pieler was deputy counsel to U.S. Senate majority leader Bob Dole and tax counsel to the Finance Committee of the U.S. Senate.

Scott A. Sinder is a member of the Washington, DC, law and government relations firm Steptoe & Johnson, LLP, and is also the outside general counsel for the Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers and for the Commercial Mortgage Securities Association. He is both an appellate litigator and a legislative attorney and actively represents trade associations and companies on a wide range of issues in state and federal trial and appellate courts, in state legislatures and Congress, and before regulatory agencies. Mr. Sinder’s recent legislative projects have included legislative and regulatory work on the Terrorism Risk Insurance Extension Act of 2005, the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2002, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, electronic signatures legislation, and various privacy bills and initiatives (including the development and interpretation of the HIPAA health privacy rules). He is an experienced commercial and public law litigator, and his work in these areas has included involvement in constitutional, class action, antitrust, copyright, redistricting, and other complex civil litigation cases.

Peter J. Wallison joined AEI in January 1999, is currently a senior fellow and co-director of AEI’s program on financial market deregulation, and holds the Arthur F. Burns Chair in Economic Policy Studies. He previously practiced banking, corporate, and financial law at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Washington, D.C., and New York. From June 1981 to January 1985, Mr. Wallison was general counsel of the United States Treasury Department, where he had a significant role in the development of the Reagan administration’s proposals for deregulation in the financial services industry. He also served as general counsel to the Depository Institutions Deregulation Committee and participated in the Treasury Department’s efforts to deal with the debt held by less-developed countries. During 1986 and 1987, Mr. Wallison was White House counsel to President Ronald Reagan. Between 1972 and 1976, Mr. Wallison served first as special assistant to Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller and, subsequently, as counsel to Mr. Rockefeller when he was vice president of the United States.

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